On the art of writing fiction

by Unknown

On the staff of an amateur magazine to which in early youth the writer contributed, there was one most obliging and useful member whose business it was to provide “copy” for the odd corners and inevitable spaces between the more important papers. He wrote, you will observe, not because he had anything in the world to say or tell, but because a certain amount of space must at all costs be covered; and the effusions thus inspired he signed with the modest and appropriate pseudonym of “Phillup Bosch.” How often in fiction of a certain class may even now be recognised the handiwork of this industrious writer, always unsigned, indeed, at least by the old familiar name. The sparkle of his early touch is gone, but his unmistakable purpose is the same. The glamour of “auld lang syne” may to his old friends endear these interpolations, but from a literary point of view it is much to be desired that he would lay aside his pen for ever. And yet it must be acknowledged that without his aid there are three-volume novels that could never have been written. Fortunately, the short story is independent of him.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of the short story become more distinct when we consider its possible theme. The crowded stage and wide perspective of the novel proper; all transformations of character and circumstance in which length of time is an essential element; even the intricately tangled plot, deliberately and knot by knot unfolded—these are beyond its reach. The design of the short story must itself be short—and simple. A single, not too complicated, incident is best; in short, the one entire and perfect action, that Aristotle—I quote from Buckley’s translation—considered the best subject of fable or poem. To the writer might well be repeated the stage-manager’s advice to aspiring dramatists, quoted by Coppée in his Contes en Prose:

“If they come to me with their plays when I am at breakfast, I say—‘Look here, can you tell me the plot in the time it takes me to eat this boiled egg? If not—away with it—it is useless.’” The author of a short story submitted to the same kind of test would have to be even more expeditious.

The art of omission

It may be observed that all these suggestions are of a negative order, and concerned with “the tact of omission.” It is indeed of the first importance in the composition of the short story. As a famous etcher once said to the writer while she stood entranced before a study of river, trees, and cattle, that his magic touch had converted into a very poem, an exquisite picture of pastoral repose—“The great thing is to know what to leave out.” It is part of that economy already insisted upon, “to express only the characteristic traits of succeeding actions,” and, as Mr. Besant exhorts us, to suppress “all descriptions which hinder instead of helping the action, all episodes of whatever kind, all conversation which does not either advance the story or illustrate the characters.”

Grasp of point

Dramatic instinct

How this “essential and characteristic” is to be distinguished from all around it is another matter. It is a work that a great French master of the art described as a travail acharné. But it is also very often made easy by native instinct, like that which directs these born story-tellers—their name is legion—of both sexes and all conditions, who never put pen to paper, but who in hall or cottage, drawing-room or kitchen, nursery or smoking-room, whenever they unfold a tale, hold all their audience attentive and engrossed. Their method when analysed appears to chiefly depend, first on their firm grasp of the main point and purport of their story, next on their liberal use of dialogue in the telling of it. At least thus do the listeners to one enchanting story-teller endeavour to explain the dramatic flavour she imparted to the commonest incidents of domestic life. For instance, this is what she would have made of a theme so ungrateful as the fact that, the butcher having sent too large a joint, she had returned it to him. For the benefit of inexperienced housekeepers, it is perhaps as well to explain that a fair average weight for a leg of mutton is declared by experts to be nine pounds.

“Directly I went into the larder, I said, ‘Jane, what on earth is that?’